Potatoes may increase risk of diabetes when pregnant

In a year, Australians are estimated to eat 68kg of potatoes each. That's a whole lot of mash – but if you're trying to conceive, it may be worth laying off the French fries and roast potatoes.

New research from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has found that women who eat high amounts of potatoes before pregnancy may be more likely to develop gestational diabetes.

Gestational diabetes occurs during pregnancy when your body cannot cope with the extra demand for insulin production, and typically disappears after the baby is born.

The researchers analysed data from more than 15,000 women who participated in a study over a 10-year period between 1991 and 2001.

Every four years, the women were asked to fill out a survey which asked which kind of foods they had eaten during the previous year. For potatoes, the survey asked if they had eaten the starchy vegetable from "never" to "six or more times a day".

The results found that a woman's risk of gestational diabetes seemed to increase by 27 percent if she regularly ate between two and four cups of potatoes a week.

The leady author of the study, Dr Cuilin Zhang, told CBS News that the findings revealed a trend between potatoes and developing the disease.

"We found that a diet with a higher level of potato consumption before pregnancy was related to a greater risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy," Zhang said.

If you're worried about chowing down on delicious baked potatoes and fries, there are ways you can substitute your favourite 'taters to reduce your risk.

"Our next question was, 'What are we going to recommend women to eat instead?'," said Zhang.

The researchers found that women who dropped just two servings per week of potatoes for alternative foods had a nine to 12 percent lower risk of developing gestational diabetes.

If they substituted potatoes for other vegetables, they reduced their chances by 9 percent. If they swapped them for legumes, they reduced their risk by 10 percent, and if they swapped potatoes for whole grains, they reduced the risk by almost 12 percent.

The authors were quick to point out that this study was not designed to prove conclusively that potatoes directly lead to gestational diabetes – but it’s not the first time that potatoes have been in the firing line.

In 2005 a study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that potato and French fry consumption were both positively associated with the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and that the risk was more pronounced in obese women.